Shapiro says he recently received e-mail inquiries out of England and Japan requesting that he handle the senders’ collection matters.

“I have some high exposure in the field of collection law,” says Shapiro, who is co-author of a book on the subject for the Mass. Practice Series.

The scams commonly start with an e-mail to an attorney from what looks to be a legitimate organization or business. The sender explains who he is and what his business concerns are. The attorney is then notified that the issue at hand has been resolved and that he will receive a check that he should deposit, with the remainder to be wired back to the client. But, of course, the check is bogus, leaving the lawyer liable for the funds.

“There [are] a lot of nice people out there that could get hurt from a scam like this,” Shapiro says. “The scariest part of it is that when you collect money from somebody, the client frequently will hear about it and, in the normal course of doing business, would say: ‘Why don’t you hold that check for a couple of days and then send me a remittance.’ And you wouldn’t think twice about it because checks clear so quickly.”

Cambridge lawyer Dana E. Casher knows all too well how the scams work, having nearly fallen victim to one.

“Economically, the world is very small,” Casher notes. “Huge amounts of money transfer when someone hits a keyboard, so to say that you’re not going to represent somebody because you haven’t met them, or you haven’t spoken with them directly, certainly you can establish those limitations for your own comfort, but it will limit you. … When I received this solicitation, I didn’t think it was that uncommon.”

Casher says the fee agreement she sent out was signed and returned. But when there was no further correspondence and she received an allegedly certified check via Federal Express, she suspected something was amiss.

“I wasn’t running to the bank,” Casher says. Instead, she reported her experience to the Board of Bar Overseers and the FBI, neither of which could offer her any advice on the matter.

“Whether or not the scam artists get more sophisticated in finding out who might respond, I don’t know, but I would expect that they do,” Casher says.